


Call and Response

by Satelesque



Series: Appleradio Collection [2]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Bickering, Duet, Implied Relationships, M/M, Mild Power Play, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24629602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satelesque/pseuds/Satelesque
Summary: Lucifer is tired of Charlie's musical talents being credited to Lilith and insists on starring in a live radio performance.  Alastor doesn't trust Lucifer's taste in music in the slightest and negotiates him down to a duet.
Relationships: Alastor/Lucifer Magne
Series: Appleradio Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780735
Comments: 9
Kudos: 74





	Call and Response

Nowadays the world teemed with more and more useless noise. Entire sentences went clear over Alastor’s head, not that it bothered him. If people wanted to spout gibberish, they could have themselves a ball. If they wanted to communicate, they should start using real words.

But like it or not Alastor couldn’t help but pick up on some of the gibberish. After the fiasco that was “Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow,” he had more than a passing idea of what HellHub and “going viral” meant, but he’d eat his own shoes before he admitted it. Not even to the King of Hell himself.

“Look, she’s trending again! Hit five million overnight and still climbing.” Lucifer scooted his chair closer, shoving one of those glass blocks people called telephones almost under Alastor’s nose. On it was an image Alastor recognized instantly, the café that just yesterday morning had played host to one of Charlie’s impromptu musical numbers. A café much like the one they were currently in, albeit less deserted. Then Lucifer poked the picture and the bottom half vanished, replaced by lines of text. Most of it was incomprehensible and all of it presumably unflattering. “Don’t mind the comments,” Lucifer said. “They’re a cesspool even on Lilith’s songs.”

Lucifer was too close, his chin almost resting on Alastor’s shoulder so he could see the screen. Worst of all, it wasn’t even deliberate. There wasn’t a trace of ulterior motive in Lucifer’s voice, just the honeyed tone of proud parenthood, right in Alastor’s ear.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve already heard it. In fact, I caught a live performance!” Alastor pushed the phone out of his face, but it had the opposite effect as intended. Lucifer only turned in his chair and leaned back, resting against Alastor’s arm as he poked at the phone with his forefinger. His coffee sat forgotten on the table.

“Look at this one! ‘Shit was stuck in my head all day, ohtoe not as crap as the last one.’ Ohtoe? What does O-T-O-H mean?”

Alastor barely had time to roll his eyes before Lucifer was going off again.

“Oh! And this one. ‘Gotta admit it’s catchy. Maybe if Lilith taught her lyrics that aren’t sappy bullshit.’ You know, I’ve never understood it. Everyone thinks Charlie gets her musical sense from Lilith, and they’re not _entirely_ wrong. _Someone_ had to teach her to hit the high notes, but they act like I can’t tell a chord from an arpeggio. It’s almost insulting, don’t you think?” His head tipped back, resting against Alastor’s shoulder, and that time it was intentional.

Alastor shrugged, keeping the motion as casual as possible and biting down a laugh when Lucifer grabbed the table for balance. “I’m sure it would be if I ever gave them a chance to forget.”

“Ah, your broadcasts. Of course.” Lucifer crossed his legs and leaned back again, and this time it was his win. Shrugging wouldn’t work a second time, and Alastor could find no other way of getting him off, not without admitting discomfort. “You’ll have to have me on sometime! A live performance!”

But even if Alastor had lost the round, he could still win the long game. He sighed, taking a moment to choose his play carefully. “And what were you thinking of playing for this live performance?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll wing it.”

“Absolutely not!” Alastor said, and he could feel Lucifer’s head tip back, trying to make eye contact. Alastor took another sip of his drink.

”Go ahead, tell me why,” Lucifer said, and that was perfect. All the careful stillness, stung pride, and unsubtle threat Alastor could want, barely veiled behind the cheer of a thin smile. “Do it. Tell me you of all people think I’m not good enough. I’ll rip your throat out.”

“I’d never!” Alastor said, overacting the objection with a shake of his head and fingertips to his chest. “I know just how brilliant a musician you are, so it’s not a matter of skill. It’s a matter of content.”

Alastor could feel the breath Lucifer let out, a half-laugh, half-scoff that shook both of them. “Hah! Content? Never mind how I’d manage it, since when have you cared about offending your listeners?”

“I didn’t start today, if that’s what you’re asking,” Alastor said. “No, no, the one offended would be me. I refuse to let you turn my show into a circus.”

For a while Lucifer was silent, deciding perhaps whether to tear Alastor’s throat out anyway, but Alastor had too much of a point. For all his virtuosity—for all his centuries of practice and mastery of dozens of instruments—there was barely a song Lucifer had played without Alastor regretting having asked to hear it.

Perhaps it was because he was so practiced. Lucifer played off the cuff with barely a thought, and that was where the trouble started. Within a few measures his natural tendencies started showing through. His inclination toward the grandiose and bombastic—marches mostly, maybe a dance or two, the faster the better. He’d ramp up the tempo, adding flourishes and complex melodies as if to show off until finally, inevitably, he was playing a screamer march. It was impressive, sure. Fast-paced, rousing, and technically demanding, but at any moment Alastor expected a clown car to roll into the room and an entire big top to spill out.

Eventually Lucifer spoke up again, his voice full of hollow threat. “You would disobey an order from your king?”

Alastor answered lightly. “Oh? Was it an order?”

There was no simple answer to that question. A no would be surrender, but a yes would be no better. The game only lasted as long as Alastor was playing of his own free will, and a yes would be as good as flipping the table.

“No, not an order,” Lucifer said eventually. “A favor for a favor. I’ll owe you one.”

“Now that’s more interesting.” Alastor didn’t bother keeping the grin from his face or his voice as he hummed a short tune, as if pausing to consider the offer. As if they didn’t both know he’d take it.

The question wasn’t if Alastor wanted the favor, it was what he’d do with it. A boon from the King of Hell wasn’t a trifle, but the promise of more was worth using it on one. It was the simplest trick in the dealmaking book. Make the target comfortable. Let them lower their guard and invite you in. It worked in Troy, and it had worked on dozens of the souls that were Alastor’s now. Lucifer would doubtless see it coming, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t work on him too. Besides, it wouldn’t be a waste of a favor if Alastor had fun along the way.

It was rationalization, all of it. Just a pile of excuses to avoid tipping the balance. The game would shift if Alastor had a favor in his pocket, and that would be the real waste.

“I accept,” he finally said. “And I’d like to name my favor now.”

Finally Lucifer sat up, turning in his seat until his knee pressed against Alastor’s, his grin wide and his eyes bright with anticipation. “Already? What is it?”

“A duet.”

Alastor paused to savor the flick of genuine surprise on Lucifer’s face. The words were all but written across it. ‘A duet. A duet? Between the two of us?’ Then there was the amused acceptance as it sank in, the slight crinkle of Lucifer’s eyes that was Alastor’s cue to go on.

“Exactly. My stations are _mine._ Might as well be arms and legs. I can’t let someone play whatever they want live! That’s worth more than a favor, even from you. But a duet? I’ll set the rhythm, and you play over it however you’d like.”

“As long as it’s in time, you mean.”

“Of course, or it wouldn’t be a duet.”

The two were leaning closer, eyes locked, knees pushed almost painfully together, and just as Lucifer opened his mouth to answer, Alastor blinked and pulled away, breaking the moment.

“Oh, and by _‘a_ duet,’ naturally I mean two. One on-air for all the marbles, and the other. . .” Alastor picked up his coffee, and as his hands glowed red the table under it changed. Lucifer’s cup, long forgotten, disappeared with the rest of it, and Alastor took a sip and set his down on the edge of a grand piano. “The other here and now. Proof of concept in case I need to reconsider, but I won’t, will I?” Alastor looked back with a grin, then scooted along the piano bench that had replaced their seats until he was sitting in the middle and their sides were pressed together. “Go on, pick a genre.”

And that was the best part. Piano suited anything and everything but circus screamers, forcing Lucifer to pick something decent. He hemmed and hawed about it for a while, more to lean against Alastor’s side than out of any real indecision, but eventually a saxophone appeared in his hands. “I’m thinking swing. Plenty of room for a good soloist.”

“How about some backup? It isn’t swing without trumpets.” Alastor’s hand was raised in the air, fingers poised to snap. The shadows in the room darkened, but the magic faded away as Lucifer wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“No backup or it wouldn’t be a duet, now would it? You’ll just have to make up for it on your own.” The words were low and soft by Alastor’s ear, almost a threat if not for the obvious glee in Lucifer’s voice. And Alastor could feel it too. The lingering buzz of an evenly matched game, the joy of playing, and the thrill of accepting a new challenge. It had his fingers tapping softly on the bench and Lucifer’s leg, ready to strike up a beat. Lucifer chuckled as he gave Alastor’s shoulders a final squeeze, then slid to the edge of the bench to give him room.

Alastor let his hands hang in the air for a second, ever the performer, before bringing them down for a ragtime rendition of Charlie’s tune from the day before. The comments weren’t wrong. It was catchy, and Lucifer actually laughed, a bright and vibrant sound, before putting his lips to the mouthpiece.

His melody was fast and upbeat, switching on a whim from light and flowing to inhumanly complex sequences that had his hands dancing across the body of the sax. It was a joy to listen to, a joy to get lost in. The sax didn’t suit Lucifer, too smooth and too mellow for his usual style, but he made it work better than any dedicated saxophonist Alastor had ever heard. The only shame was that more often than not his talent went to waste on marches, but maybe that was another part of today’s magic. This moment was Alastor’s. His doing, his design, and his reward. His music alone to listen to, at least until the broadcast.

For a moment the urge seized him to cancel it, but of course he couldn’t. He’d made a deal. An informal one, but a deal nevertheless. Besides, the broadcast would be a different sort of claim. Alastor had the easier role as rhythm piano, holding together the beat and the harmony, but he was more than keeping up. He threw in snatches of up-tempo improv between solos and in pauses for breath, cycled through permutations of the base harmony, and changed it up whenever the mood was right. It was a spiral, an easy back-and-forth of reading and responding that Alastor had only seen Lucifer share with Lilith on vocals.

It was only as Lucifer finished off with a high trill and fade away that Alastor realized his eyes hadn’t been closed to focus on the music. They’d been staring at Lucifer, who now looked back, lips parted, breathing deep to catch his breath. His cheeks were redder than usual from exertion, and his eyes were shining.

“Good practice,” he said, just breathy enough to send a shiver down Alastor’s spine. “I for one can’t wait for the real deal.”

And Alastor barely managed to hold in a laugh long enough to get the words out. “Oh, I don’t know. It felt a bit off near the end there. I think we could stand to do another dry run.”

The two of them descended into laughter, and it didn’t matter that the illusion slipped and faded away. It didn’t matter that their coffee was cold or that the café staff had been only a step behind the guests in fleeing the place. Not when there was the promise of another day and plenty of fun to be had.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy, that's day 1. I only found out about this whole thing mid-last week, so I can't promise I'll get all the days done in time or to my preferred level of polish, but I'm trying! I really am!
> 
> If anyone wants to know what a circus screamer sounds like, here's [Rolling Thunder](https://youtu.be/E9MrRWsSK5g).


End file.
